BASEBALL

BASEBALL; Whitehurst Counting On His Curveball

By JOE SEXTON, Special to The New York Times

Published: March 29, 1991

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., March 28—
For Wally Whitehurst, the crafting of the curveball began in childhood, an unsophisticated, untutored project undertaken in the late afternoons in his family's patch of southeastern Louisiana countryside.

He alone, through trial and error and laughter, figured out the proper design of his fingers along the seams and marveled at the dynamics of the ball's flight through the thick air of the deep South.

"I started pitching at age 8, and I learned most everything on my own until I got well into high school," said Whitehurst, the right-handed pitcher for the Mets. "I realize now that it was probably dangerous to have started fooling around with a curveball that early." Getting His Big Moment

Whitehurst's elbow and arm survived, and it is the belief and hope of the Mets that his curveball has arrived.

"I have no doubts whatsoever that I'm up to the moment," Whitehurst said.

The moment is a dramatic one, the stage an unforgiving one that will require a durability of the psyche as well as the elbow. The Mets, with Sid Fernandez sidelined at least until June, have named Whitehurst to the starting rotation. With the focus on a redesigned team already promising to be intense, the scrutiny of its substitute starter is destined to be unrelenting.

"We've been very spoiled in this organization by our surplus of high-priced superstar pitchers," said Gerry Hunsicker, the director of baseball operations for the Mets. "People expect us to pull another out of the hat over and over again. Wally isn't that. Sorry. But he is a very solid pitcher, one who makes very good use of the ability he has."

What Whiteburst has is an often cruelly acrobatic curveball and an assortment of three other pitches: a fastball, a slider and a changeup. Above all else, so to speak, he has a head for how to employ and deploy the repertory.

If the 27-year-old Whitehurst's ego has been bruised through his prolonged apprenticeship, he hides the wounds well. He has endured without complaint, performing quietly and capably in the minors during 1988 and 1989. Then, last season Whitehurst accepted the role of long reliever, and became as wicked with the chores as he was willing. He posted a record of 1-0, striking out 46 men and walking only 9 in 65 2/3 innings.

"I got to where I liked it," said Whitehurst, who came to the Mets from the Athletics in 1987. "It forced you to stay in the game. Heck, I could be in any one. And I may end up back there when Sid returns."

And so it is that Whitehurst has handled his high-profile promotion with the equanimity with which he coped during his extended tenure as "the starter in waiting." Whitehurst is without qualification one of the most popular and unpretentious figures in the clubhouse. Jeff Innis, his closest friend, insists he hasn't yet seen Whitehurst so much as smile publicly over his elevation.

"With Wally, there is no ego under disguise, no agenda beneath the surface," said Innis, the reliever who was Whitehurst's longstanding roommate in the minors.

"He's not calculating in his head, that if he does well in this showcase that X number of wins can mean X millions of dollars down the road. He's figuring out how to win, how to help. He's a very humble, very unassuming, but very smart guy. And he's an intelligent, gifted, very competitive pitcher. I don't doubt he's ready." Wait Doesn't Seem So Long

There certainly is no question he has built a momentum through the spring. Whitehurst, in five outings that have comprised 17 innings, has an earned run average of 1.59. He has struck out nine and walked just two.

"In years, the wait for this might seem long," Whitehurst said. "But it doesn't feel that way to me. And if you believe in your heart that the shot has been legitimately worked for and earned, there's no time to sit back and smile." Viola's Contract Terms

A team source familiar with the details of left-hander Frank Viola's proposal to the Mets for a contract extension said the offered deal was for four years and worth slightly less than $20 million. The source also said, though, that Viola understood he would likely have to yield on the demand for four years, and that the purpose of the proposal was to position himself for a settlement on a three-year package at a greater annual salary. . . . Ron Darling ran his string of consecutive scoreless innings this spring to 11 when he shut out the Reds for six innings in an eventual 3-2 loss in Plant City, Fla. Darling allowed only five hits while striking out three before Julio Valera and Al Pena combined to allow three runs over the last two innings.

Photo: Wally Whitehurst working on his curveball at the Mets' training camp. (Barton Silverman/The New York Times)